# Notes from Transcription # Hooks and Verbeek's Theory of Artifact Use: Expanded Notes ## Introduction ### Context and Background - Paper focuses on Hooks and Verbeek's analysis of artifact use and function - Represents a shift from traditional [[proper function]] theories in [[philosophy of technology]] - Aims to provide a use-based analysis rather than a function-based one ### [[Key Concepts]] - Phenomenology of [[everyday life]]: Central to understanding artifact use - [[Use plans]]: Core concept in Hooks and Verbeek's theory - Non-essentialist approach: Rejecting intrinsic functions of artifacts ### Objectives of the Theory - Provide a more nuanced understanding of artifact use and misuse - Address limitations of function-based approaches - Offer a framework that better aligns with everyday experiences of artifact use ## Critique of Function-Based Theories ### Limitations of Function-Based Approaches #### Failure to Capture Agent-Involving Dimension - [[Function theories]] often neglect [[the role]] of human agents in artifact use - Overlook the dynamic interaction between users and artifacts #### Treatment of Artifacts as Intrinsically Functional - [[Function theories]] tend to ascribe fixed, inherent functions to artifacts - [[This view]] struggles with artifacts that have multiple or changing uses #### Neglect of Creator Roles - Often overlook the intentions and decisions of artifact creators - Fail to account for [[the design]] process in understanding [[artifact function]] ### Problems with [[Proper Function]] Dichotomy #### Inadequacy for Gradual Changes - [[Proper function]] theories struggle with evolving uses of artifacts [[over time]] - Example: The gradual evolution of telephone functions from communication to multi-purpose devices #### Difficulty in Differentiating Use and Misuse - Binary classification of proper/improper use is too simplistic - Fails to account for creative or unconventional uses that may be beneficial #### Struggle with Distinguishing Use and [[Mere Effects]] - Proper function theories often can't differentiate between intentional use and accidental effects - Example: Magnifying glass used for fire-starting vs. accidentally causing a fire ### Specific Examples of Function Theory Shortcomings #### Aspirin Use in African Tribes - Discovery of pain-relieving properties by African tribes - Challenges the notion of a single "proper" function determined by the creator #### Chopsticks and Multiple Functions - Used for eating in some cultures, as cooking utensils in others - Illustrates how cultural context influences artifact use and "proper" function #### Telephone Evolution - From simple voice communication device to multi-functional smartphone - Demonstrates how artifact functions can expand far beyond original design intentions ## Use Plan Analysis ### Definition and Concept of Use Plan #### Core Definition - A series of manipulations aimed at achieving a specific goal - May or may not involve physical objects #### Components of Use Plans - Beliefs about circumstances: User's understanding of the situation - Utilities: Perceived benefits or values associated with the use - Side effects: Anticipated consequences, both positive and negative #### Example: Checking a Message on a Phone 1. Pick up the phone 2. Unlock it 3. Navigate to messaging app 4. Open and read the new message ### Categories of Use in Use Plan Theory #### 1. Standard vs. Non-standard Use - Standard: Socially accepted or commonly practiced uses - Non-standard: Unconventional but potentially rational uses #### 2. Intended by Designer vs. Invented by User - Designer-intended: Uses aligned with the creator's original vision - User-invented: Creative or adaptive uses discovered by users #### 3. Rational vs. Irrational Use - Rational: Logical, purposeful use aligned with the artifact's capabilities - Irrational: Use that defies logic or efficient problem-solving ### Design as Construction and Communication of Use Plans #### Shift in Understanding Design - Designers create use plans, not just physical objects - Emphasis on how an artifact should be used, not just what it is #### Examples of Design as Use Plan Creation - Mr. Bialetti's Moka pot: Plan for making espresso-like coffee at home - AeroPress inventor: New plan for coffee-making using pressure and immersion #### Implications for Design Theory - Broadens the scope of what constitutes "design" - Emphasizes the cognitive and social aspects of artifact creation ## Artifacts as Fusions of Materiality and Action/Intention ### Conceptual Framework - Artifacts defined by both physical properties and intended uses - Rejects the notion of artifacts having intrinsic, unchanging functions ### Example: Coffee Pot Analysis - Materiality: Heat-resistant materials, shape designed for brewing - Action/Intention: Goal of brewing coffee, associated rituals and practices ### Contrast with Function-Based Views - Function-based: Coffee pot has the intrinsic function of brewing coffee - Use-based: Coffee pot is a fusion of material properties and coffee-making intentions ### Implications for Artifact Identity - Same physical object can be different artifacts based on use intentions - Allows for more flexible understanding of artifact nature and purpose ## Philosophical Implications ### Non-Essentialism and Reductionism #### Rejection of Intrinsic Functions - Artifacts do not have essential, unchanging functions - Functions are derived from use plans and social practices #### Reductionist Approach - Artifact nature reduced to combination of use plans and materiality - Avoids metaphysical commitments to intrinsic properties ### Compatibility with Other Theories #### Potential Alignment with Preston's Evolutionary View - Use plans could provide a foundation for understanding artifact evolution - Possible integration of use-based and evolutionary perspectives #### Foundation for Proper Function Theories - Use plans as a basis for understanding how proper functions emerge - Potential for synthesizing intentionalist and use-based approaches ### Criticism and Defense #### Parsons' Critique - Argues that relying on social acceptance undermines intentionalist theories - Claims this shift represents a fundamental departure from proper function theory #### Defense of Hooks and Verbeek's Approach - Not an intentionalist theory of function, but a theory of use with intentional elements - Intentions play a role but are not the sole determinant of artifact nature or use ## Challenges and Considerations ### Granularity of Use Plans #### Balancing Specificity and Generality - Too specific: May lose generalizability across similar artifacts - Too general: May fail to capture important distinctions in use #### Example: Fishing Rod Use Plans - General plan: "Use to catch fish" - Specific plans: Differentiate between fly fishing, bait casting, etc. ### Novel Artifacts and Use Plans #### Accounting for Newly Invented Artifacts - How use plans develop for entirely new types of objects - Role of designer intentions in establishing initial use plans #### Relation to Discovery of New Uses - Process by which new use plans emerge for existing artifacts - Example: Repurposing of medications for new treatments ### Phenomenological Plausibility #### Question of Conscious Awareness - Extent to which users are consciously aware of use plans during artifact use - Relation to habitual or expert use of familiar artifacts #### Connection to Motor Plans and Unconscious Actions - Role of unconscious processes in executing use plans - Example: Complex motor skills in using tools or instruments ## Conclusion ### Summary of Use Plan Analysis - Offers an alternative to traditional function-based theories of artifacts - Emphasizes the role of use and user intentions in understanding artifacts ### Advantages of the Approach - More flexible framework for understanding diverse and changing artifact uses - Better alignment with everyday experiences of artifact interaction ### Future Directions - Potential for integration with other philosophical approaches to artifacts - Implications for fields such as design theory, cognitive science, and anthropology ### Final Thoughts - Use plan analysis provides a rich, nuanced approach to understanding artifacts - Challenges traditional notions of artifact essence and function - Opens new avenues for exploring human-technology relationships # Lecture Notes ## I. The Phenomenology of Artifact Use A central motivation for Houkes & Vermaas' (hereafter H&V) "use plan" approach is a set of phenomenological observations about the creativity, diversity and context-sensitivity of artifact use. Some key points: - **Creative Re-Use**: Users often employ artifacts in ways that diverge from the original intended or standard use. Examples: using chopsticks as hair ornaments, using a shoe to open a bottle, using a screwdriver as a paint can opener. This flexibility resists characterization in terms of fixed proper functions. - **Fluid Standards**: What counts as the "proper" use of an artifact can change over time as innovative use plans are developed and socially stabilized. The history of aspirin shows a shift from exclusive use as a painkiller to primary use as a blood thinner. Use norms are not static but evolve with practices. (cf. pp. 55-57) - **Intentional Action**: Not just any deployment of an artifact's capacities counts as a genuine "use" - the deployment must be intentional and goal-directed. Absentmindedly setting a magnifying glass on a sunny shelf is not using it as a burning glass, even if it starts a fire. Use is agent-involving in a way pure physical description misses. (pp. 64-65) H&V contend that prevailing function-theoretic approaches have difficulty accommodating these phenomena. Theories that equate artifact function with fixed selection histories or ahistorical causal roles struggle to capture the fluidity and context-sensitivity of use. An adequate theory, they suggest, must directly thematize the relationship between artifacts and the goal-directed actions of designers and users. *Questions*: - Are H&V right that creative re-use and shifting standards are as widespread as they suggest? Can you think of artifacts that resist innovative use or have a single fixed function? - How sharp is the line between genuine "use" and mere physical happenstance? Are there borderline cases? - Is there still a notion of "misuse" or "improper use" on H&V's view, or just different uses? What might ground normative distinctions between different ways of deploying artifacts? ## II. The Use Plan Model To better accommodate these use phenomena, H&V propose analyzing artifacts in terms of "use plans" rather than merely functions: - **Use Plans**: Use plans are "goal-directed series of considered actions" involving manipulations of an artifact that aim to realize the goal state (p. 57). The elements of a use plan include: - An overall goal or aim the user wants to accomplish - A series of manipulations of the artifact that the user believes will contribute to realizing this goal - Beliefs about relevant circumstances, the user's abilities, potential side effects, etc. - **Design and Use**: On this model, to *design* an artifact is to construct a use plan and communicate it to potential users. To *use* an artifact is to execute a use plan - either one communicated by the designer or one developed by the user herself (pp. 58-59). An artifact can figure in many different use plans, giving rise to different ways of using it. - **Plan Evaluation**: Use plans are subject to normative assessment in terms of *rationality* - how well they cohere with the user's beliefs and realize the desired ends efficiently (pp. 59-60). The use plan framework thus provides resources for evaluating different ways of using artifacts as better or worse, rational or irrational. But these standards are context-dependent, not built into artifacts as intrinsic proper functions. H&V argue that this agency-involving conception of artifacts has better resources for capturing the creativity, fluidity and intentionality of use. By figuring artifacts directly into goal-directed action schema, it moves beyond attempts to reduce artifact normativity to the ahistorical physical capacities or retrospective selection histories emphasized by causal-role and etiological theories. *Questions*: - Is the notion of "rationality" employed by H&V's use plan model sufficiently clear and substantive? Are there factors relevant to the normative assessment of use that it leaves out? - The authors sometimes characterize use plans as "series of considered actions" and elsewhere as "series of manipulations." Is there a tension here - must the actions constituting a use plan be intentional or deliberate, or can they be more automatic? How might different answers affect the scope of the model? - What is the nature of the "communication" of a use plan by designers to users? What forms can it take and how explicit must it be? Are there limits to how far the designer can constrain the "proper" use of an artifact? ## III. Metaphysical Implications H&V draw out a number of striking metaphysical consequences from their use plan analysis: - **Artifacts as Fusions**: The use plan approach suggests that artifacts are not merely material objects but "fusions of materiality and intentional action" (p. 67) - complex entities spanning physical structures and frameworks of goal-directed behavior. To fully characterize an artifact requires specifying not just its physical makeup but its role in use plans and practices. - **Individuation by Use**: This implies that artifacts with similar physical structures can be distinct artifacts if they figure in different use plans. The chopsticks used as hair ornaments are a different artifact from those used as eating utensils, even if they are materially identical. What unifies and differentiates artifact kinds is common use plans, not just intrinsic structure (p. 68). - **The Primacy of Practice**: More radically, H&V suggest that an artifact's identity and essential features depend not on its material substrate or original design function, but on its actual roles in socially situated use practices. Artifacts are continually "re-essentialized" as use plans evolve: "Relative to a use plan... at least one capacity of the artifact is highlighted among the multitude of capacities that it actually or supposedly has" (p. 67). - **Dissolving "Proper Function"**: This amounts to a deflationary view of proper functions - there are no intrinsic, fixed proper functions, just patterns of use that evolve dynamically as practices and norms shift: "Ascribing the function φ to an artifact x entails having an appropriately justified belief that it has a capacity to φ—a capacity that the artifact may in fact lack, as witnessed by some kinds of malfunctioning" (p. 67). Proper functions are always relative to fluid use plans. This "pragmatic realist" metaphysical picture is quite revisionary relative to dominant philosophical approaches that construe artifacts in purely physical terms or subordinate their practical identity to fixed design intentions. H&V provocatively put the capacity for creative use and practical re-purposing at the center of artifact metaphysics. _Questions_: - How revisionary is this "fusion of materiality and intentional action" view - does it comport with or conflict with our pre-theoretical intuitions about the nature of artifacts? What are the strongest arguments for and against it? - If two materially identical objects are used in different ways, in what sense are they different artifacts? Is this a plausible individuation principle or does it risk an implausible proliferation of artifact kinds? - Can H&V's view adequately account for artifacts that malfunction or are defective relative to their design plan? If an artifact is rarely or never used according to its original use plan, in what sense does that plan partly constitute its identity? - How far should we go in prioritizing fluid practices over designer intentions in charactering artifacts? Is there a risk of losing sight of the role of deliberate design in giving artifacts stable identities and functions? ## IV. Philosophical Significance and Open Questions The use plan model is a highly original framework for thinking about artifacts that connects the philosophy of technology to core issues in metaphysics and action theory. Some key points of significance and avenues for further exploration: - **Overcoming the Limits of Function Theories**: H&V convincingly argue that their approach avoids the shortcomings of ahistorical causal-role theories and rigid etiological theories in accounting for creative use, shifting norms, and the intention-dependence of artifacts. It provides a more flexible and dynamic model of artifact functionality and normativity. - **Towards an Action-Oriented Metaphysics**: More ambitiously, H&V's view points towards a metaphysical reorientation "from objects to agency" (p. 69) that construes artifacts as constitutively linked to goal-directed action and social practice. This suggests intriguing connections to philosophical practice theory, social ontology, and debates about intention-dependent objects. There is room to further explore these connections and their implications for the metaphysics of artifacts and objects more broadly. - **Extending the Framework**: Could the use plan model be extended to non-artifactual objects like biological traits, artworks, texts, or social kinds? H&V mostly bracket this question, but their view raises the possibility of a deflationary approach to functional kinds in general that grounds them in contingent practices rather than intrinsic teleology. This warrants further examination. - **Normative and Methodological Issues**: The use plan model raises a number of questions about the basis and scope of normative distinctions between different artifact uses. H&V's appeal to plan rationality is suggestive but could be developed further - e.g. do irrational but widely adopted use plans ground genuine proper functions? There are also questions about the methodological implications of the view - how tightly should it be integrated with empirical studies of actual use practices and norms? H&V's analysis provides a powerful springboard for further investigations at the intersection of technology, metaphysics, action theory and social practice. While many details remain to be filled in, the use plan model represents an exciting and generative framework for reconceptualizing the nature and philosophical significance of artifacts. # In Class Notes